1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to aircraft and military weapon maintenance and repair, and in particular to an advanced aircraft/weapon maintenance system that provides remote trouble-shooting and technical data access capabilities to technicians through a wireless link between a handheld point-of-maintenance transceiver and a central diagnostics center, thereby minimizing maintenance and repair time, costs and requisite paper reference materials.
2. Discussion
A large number of currently deployed military aircraft and weapons, such as the F-15E aircraft, were designed in the late 1970's and early 1980's with built-in test (BIT) logic that indicates to a system operator when a system component has failed or requires maintenance. This BIT logic which is typically designed into a system and implemented on a system level through both hardware and software, reports system failures or malfunctions due to failure of one or more system components which the logic is designed to detect. These failures or malfunctions are made known to the system operator, such as an F-15 pilot, on a cockpit display through a BIT flag identifying the specific failure or malfunction.
In operation, the system will generate significant amount of information for analysis by the BIT logic. The BIT logic then automatically performs a system-wide nodal analysis and can generate equipment maintenance orders usually signalled by generation of a BIT flag, based upon a combination of BIT data and system operator observations. Therefore, a component identified may be repaired or replaced before the aircraft or weapon fails or malfunctions on the front line.
However, conventional BIT logic often generates maintenance orders for components when the components are in fact fully operational. As a result, fully operational components will often be pulled and replaced. Therefore, overall weapon/aircraft maintenance costs are increased due to the performance of such unnecessary maintenance procedures. The removal of fully operational components also increases the number of aircraft or weapons temporarily out of commission and increases the number of maintenance technicians required to service the equipment.
In addition, once the BIT logic indicates that an aircraft or weapon requires repair and maintenance through generation of a BIT flag, technicians must be dispatched to the remotely located weapon, or intermediate hub repair points must be set up for servicing of these remotely located aircraft or weapons. Due to the ever increasing complexity of the electronics implemented in such systems, the technicians must exhibit a high level of training and have a high level of associated skill to repair the associated equipment. In addition, the technicians must have technical reference materials available to correctly locate and identify a flagged problem. For instance, it is estimated that the F-15 aircraft has an associated 16,000 pounds of associated technical data, paper reference materials, parts and repairs manuals, and other related reference materials. As updated technical data is published at regular periodic intervals, it is difficult at best for even the most highly skilled and trained technician to keep abreast of the most up-to-date information associated with each weapons system. Further, as such repair and component replacement must often be performed at locations remote from a central repair facility, the associated reference materials are often not readily available to the technicians when and where the materials are most needed. As is often the case, even updated reference materials are often months, or years, behind the most recently-implemented equipment.
One possible solution to the above referenced limitations includes retrofitting all weapons systems with the most current technically advanced BIT and diagnostics equipment. Such equipment would minimize false pulls of still operative weapon components and would greatly reduce time and expense associated with weapon repair and maintenance.
However, retrofitting weapons with this state-of-the-art technology is presently cost prohibitive and would require such systems to be removed from commission for a period of time while being retrofitted with the new equipment. In addition, such state-of-the-art technology would still require a significant amount of associated paper reference materials and would require technicians to maintain a high level of knowledge of the most current information on the equipment.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a maintenance system for such aircraft and military weapons systems that would minimize the number of false pulls of still operative system components. It would also be desirable to provide a maintenance system that would eliminate the need for intermediate, or hub, repair facilities implemented remotely from a central station and that would virtually eliminate the associated paper-based technical reference materials. This would minimize the associated time and cost and maximize accuracy and efficiency of system repair and maintenance operations.